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The Woodsman
Directed by Nicole Kassell
Starring: Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Mos Def, Benjamin Bratt
Script: Steven Fechter
Running Time: 1:27
Country: USA
Year: 2004
Official Site: The Woodsman
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In The Woodsman, Kevin Bacon plays a pedophile who, after a 12-year stint in jail, tries to get back to a normal life in his hometown. Bacon, an underrated actor often seen in sexually deviant roles (Wild Things, Hollow Man), is subdued here. His face is stiff, like a shield hiding an internal scar from the rest of the world. His eyes are distraught, lost, and he avoids people as if they were trouble. If he seems to sleepwalk through this movie, it's because he's dead inside. His family has banned him and he can only find some kind of normalcy in the presence of his brother-in-law (Benjamin Bratt) and in the arms of a co-worker (Kyra Sedgwick.)
With a taboo subject like pedophilia, it would have been easy to assume that The Woodsman would be a provocative film. On the contrary, screenwriter Steven Fechter and co-writer director Nicole Kassell have crafted a subtle film about second chances given by society. While they don't judge their character—who has paid his dues to society for the last 12 years—they don't try to find him excuses either. Though he never physically hurt a kid, he knows he's sick and struggles with his moral disease, totally assuming his punishment. Instead, they prefer to focus on the aftermath, walking on the thin borderline between conscience and temptation, morality and sin, while confronting society about the right to be reintegrated.
The film raises several issues, from the standpoint of the ex-offender, whose answers are not clearly defined. First it clearly assesses that it isn't totally safe to release those individuals, as it is difficult to assess if they are cured at a psychological level. Witnessing Bacon's encounters with his psychologist, reading his diary and following him as he slowly succumbs to his darkest instincts, we can see he is still a threat to society. On the other hand, Megan's Law clearly looks like an obstacle to a successful reintegration, as from the moment he is "marked" by his co-workers, he becomes a hopeless and tracked animal. While this is certainly not a film about redemption, The Woodsman shows that chances for rehabilitation and a psychological cure will be slim without the appearance of normal social and familial environments.
As the picture was unfolding, on the premise of a sober character and social study, an uncomfortable feeling started to emerge, as if the film were slowly slipping into a world of hardly believable cinematic coincidences: from his apartment overlooking a school (!!), he quickly spots another pedophile luring young boys into his car with candies. We also learn that his girlfriend was abused by her older brothers when she was little, which might explain her lesbian inclinations. Finally, the girl he meets admits having been fondled by her father.
While it looks exaggerated at first, it becomes obvious that the film points at other sources of this sick behavior, which remain unspoken and hidden, in the heart of families, from any social class. As for the encounters with the little girl on the bench-the most unbearable moment of this film-and the other pedophile, they do not offer Bacon's character a shot at redemption but rather a twisted mirror of his dark soul, which ultimately acts as a catalyst for change. Rather than banishment and isolation, the solution might be an in-depth self-examination, which might reveal the harmful effects of these instincts and certain behaviors; a treatment that not only might be the key for Bacon's character moral recovery but also for our—hypocritical—society that this character also symbolizes as a metaphor.
Fred Thom
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The Woodsman review
